hello. i'm monita rajpal in london. outrage by alleged phone hacking by tabloid, "news of the world." now, david cameron has an official inquiry, that follows reports that the newspaper hacked into phones of bereaved families of soldiers in iraq. the imf former manager, dominique strauss-kahn, says the maid's lawyer is demanding that the district attorney step aside, saying that prosecutors have leaked information to the media and discredited the maid.

of two earlier attempts, the city pyongchang won the olympic games. the power of social media has opened so many doors, it's reached the white house. president barack obama, hosting a town hall meeting on twitter wednesday. taking tweets. he answered them the old-fashioned way, through the microphone. those are the headlines. i'm monita rajpal in london. "world business today" starts right now. good morning cnn london, i'm charles hudson. >> i'm andrew stevens. welcome to "world business

today." >> investors head to the exits. a phone hacking scandal of britain's best-selling sunday newspaper deepens. facebook teams up with skype to give its users more facetime. >> and we'll tell you about the manhattan food fight over italian eating. >> it's been a mixed day on the stock markets so far. we've seen some moderate gains in the asia-pacific region. and a positive start to today's trading in europe. >> absolutely right. we're seeing markets hanging out a little bit. we've got a couple of interest rate decisions. so, we are higher as of -- well, as of right now, as you can see. but only by about barely at all. interest rate decisions, european central bank, it's widely expected that the ecb

president will raise interest rates for the second time in three months. with euro inflation expected to rise 25 basis points. 0.25%. that would take the lending to 1.5%. >> interest rates in asia as well. a mixed day after the markets, after china announced late yesterday, that hong kong and shanghai, moving in different directions. one thing analysts agree on this is likely to be the final interest rate rise in the current cycle in china. it's the third one this year. most say it's the last. inflation is expected to peak. we're seeing slower economic activity as a result of the rates to tackle inflation. in the other markets in japan, the nikkei ending a seven-day rally.

it edged down by a couple of points. down to its four-month high. in australia, june's unemployment report beat expectations. the economy adding 23,500 jobs in june. the currency's stronger. the broader market flat. and in seoul, the cosbie was up and as samsung slid by almost 2%. it posted a 26% slump in second-quarter profits. the sale of flat-screen tvs and computers slump. looking ahead to the start of wall street, u.s. futures to a pretty healthy open.

it's in the shadow of the big jobs number out tomorrow. >> indeed. we'll have to see what difference this makes. now, in the u.k., an enormous story, really, that is shaking the government in some ways. certainly putting the prime minister under pressure in parliament. police are theying there will be a full investigation into new hacking allegations, into "the news of the world." it's a sunday newspaper. advertisers are turning their backs on the u.k.'s most popular sunday read. the tabloid stands accused of hacking into the phones of a missing schoolgirl that was later found dead. as well as relatives of the 2005 london bombings six years ago. and the families of soldiers killed in iraq and afghanistan. revelations have made waves across the u.k. and even led to a debate in parliament. and definitely in that debate, i think it's fair to say that the prime minister at times looked very much to be on the back

foot. >> he seemed to be. very close with the former editor of "the news of the world." shareholders also getting out of the paper's parent company, which is newscorp. its stock price fell 5% on wednesday. did pull back you see there. but ended the day down more than 3.5%. investors voting with their feet, as well, charles. >> it's fascinating to see the business world and the political world really moving together on this. and as members of parliament here in the u.k. agree to launch a public inquiry into "the news of the world" alleged hacking, showing prime minister david cameron, and the culture secretary on either side of

rupert murdoch. the pressure is rising on the media mogul. it was britain's worst peacetime act of terrorism. but now, there are concerns that families of those killed on 7/7, in 2005, were also eavesdropped upon by the british tabloid, "news of the world." graham lost his son, david, in the attack. and says his phone may have been hacked by reporters. >> the thought that somebody may have been listening to me begging for david to phone home. i thought we were in a dark place and i didn't think anybody could make it darker. but i'm proved wrong. >> reporter: the phone hacking scandal is so shocking, it's prompted an emergency debate in britain's parliament. >> it's make the public. and i feel so appalled by what's

happened. murder victims, terrorist victims, who had their phones hacked. that's why there's a full police investigation, with all of the powers they need. we have the inquiries to get to the bottom of what went wrong. >> reporter: it's put former "news of the world" editor, rebecca brooks under incredible pressure. he's now chief executive of the parent company, news international. and maintains she knew nothing about phone hacking. rupe rupert murdoch is her ultimate boss. his news corporation is trying to take over broadcaster bib. there are claims that deal has been stopped. and in parliament, allegations there was a cover-up of the hacking. and that goes right to the top of the company, including rupert murdoch's son. >> mr. james murdoch is the chairman. it is clear now that he

personally, without board approval, authorized money to be paid by his company to silence people who had been hacked. and to cover-up criminal behavior in his organization. this is nothing short of an attempt to pervert the course of justice. >> reporter: murdoch's news international denies any cover-up. and in a statement, it says, it welcomes the call for a public inquiry. the atmosphere down here at westminster can only be described as febrile. rebecca brooks remains in her post. but her friendships with the likes of tony blair and david cameron is on the real strain, as the true scale of phone hacking becomes apparent. dan rivers, cnn, london. >> as we said, advertisers are trying to distance themselves now from the scandal. let's look a few of the names.

ford was the first company to announce it was suspending advertising in the paper and taking its business elsewhere. that opened the floodgates. and many more companies have followed suit. virgin holidays withdrew this weekend's adverts and said it will continue to monitor the vision. halifax has done the same. saying it will assess the longer implications. vauxhall, renault, say they will wait until the investigation is complete. and many are reviewing their ad placement plans. and we heard that a british utility group said it's going to withdraw advertising from "the news of the world." >> all of the allegations come at a sensitive time for newscorp. its owner, chairman, rupert murdoch, isrying to take over

british sky broadcasting that he doesn't own. but following the latest scandal, there's been calls to stall the deal. a final decision was made on friday. clearly, the market is taking the view, andrew, that 61% of b sky b, is going to remain in news international. that's depressing the price there. >> absolutely. that will be worrying rupert murdoch. let's look at some of the other news stories covering this hour. the district attorney covering dominique strauss-kahn says he will not take himself off the case, despite the demand from the alleged victim's lawyer. the lawyer's accusation that the d.a.'s office leaked derogatory information about his client to the media is, quote, without

merit. the hotel maid accused strauss-kahn of attempting to rape her in the spring. the big three rating agencies following moody's downgrade on portugal's bonds on tuesday. the e.u. president suggests the downgrade to junk status might have anti-bias on the companies based in the united states. european legislators might fight back by imposing civil penalties on ratings agencies that get it wrong. there's talk of tighter regulations and a europe-based agency to replace the big three. >> portugal's fulfillment will be assessed on a quarterly basis.

in this context, and the absence of facts on the new economy, by yesterday's decisions by one rating agency, does not provide for more clarity. they rather another add another element to the situation. >> he is, of course, from portugal. germany's finance minister was a bit more blunt. he says he wants to rake the ratings agency's power. >> the gloves are off. the facebook founder, mark zuckerberg, made a tie with skype. first, here our maggie lake. >> reporter: mark zuckerberg

offered something awesome for its millions of users. that something turned out to be a new skype service within facebook. zuckerberg says the partnership will enable people with little tech expertise to connect through video. >> it's not the case with traditional skype where both people have had to downloaded skype beforehand. we're using the best technology for doing video chat with the best social infrastructure out there, to create some new, cool scenarios. it turns out the dude i walked by will get to video chat with his grandson. that's cool. >> reporter: users won't have to have individual skype accounts. they will click a button. the service is downloaded in seconds. it won't have group video chat. at least not at the start. that may put facebook at a disadvantage to google, who rolled out its most serious stab at social networking, google

plus. it allows you to chat with up to ten people at the same time. zuckerberg hinted facebook and skype may consider something like that in the future. but it's not clear the service would be free. it may not have the futures of google plus, facebook has a lot more users. zuckerberg said the company has 750 million users sharing 4 billion things a day. tech experts says that gives facebook a big advantage. >> step one is where are your friends? right now, your friends are on facebook. until google creates something. and it's not circles. until google creates something that says i want to be there and not over at facebook, i don't see it as a threat to facebook. >> reporter: google plus has gotten positive buzz. zuckerberg and his facebook team has seen how quickly google has gained ground in the mobile phone market. and are not likely to take their eye off the composition. maggie lake, cnn, new york. >> this might be incredible. but in seven years, facebook has gone from a university

experiment to one of the world's most powerful companies. now, in february 2004, that mark zuckerberg and three co-founders set up the website. in less than a year, facebook had nearly 1 million users. at first, the site was restricted, just to university students in the united states. in 2005, it expanded to schools around the world. then, the following year, all of the restrictions were dropped. and facebook's explosive growth began. in 2007, it went from 12 million users to 50 million. that doubled in 2008. 2010, brought the oscar-winning movie, "the social network," that dramatized the conception. the founders weren't always happy. this is hollywood. today, facebook has more than 750 million users. it's not publicly listed yet. but current estimates put the company's valuation as high as $17 billion, andrew.

we're going to stay with social media after the break. u.s. president barack obama just started tweeting to get his message out. we'll sit in on his first twitter town hall meeting just ahead.

welcome back. from cnn hong kong and cnn london, this is "world business today." >> it's nothing like the conferences facebook is promising. but u.s. president barack obama held a twitter town hall meeting. dan lothian was there. >> reporter: the twitter questions came in 140 characters or less. the answers from the president did not. >> i know on twitter i'm supposed to be short. >> reporter: before he would talk about what he had done or hopes to do, president obama had to answer the question on what he would do over.

on the recession. >> one would have been to explain to the american people that it was going to take a while for us to get out of this. >> reporter: on housing. >> i think that the continuing decline in the housing market is something that hadn't bottomed out as quickly as we expected. >> reporter: in his first-ever twitter town hall, something george washington could never have imagined in the east room, the president answered a debt ceiling question he had avoided at his press conference last week. whether invoking section four, the 14th amendment, to allow him to keep on borrowing past the deadline, was an option. >> i don't think we get to the issue. >> reporter: before we got underway, house speaker john boehner crashed the forum. >> john's the speaker of the house. he's a republican. so, this is a slightly skewed question.

but what he's right about is that we have not seen fast enough job growth. >> reporter: the town hall allowed the president to preach to an audience to skews toward younger voters. some dissatisfied what he's done for them so far. >> talk to them about the issues and the things that concern them. >> reporter: and with new, young voters who weren't around in 2008, rock the vote's heather smith says, the president needs to get their attention. >> young people were a huge part of his success in 2008. and part of his winning formula has to be the continued engagement of young people at the polls. >> reporter: more than 60,000 tweets were submitted. but the focus remains getting the debt ceiling raised. on thursday, congressional leaders from both parties will come to the white house. the hope is they can find

compromise ahead of the august 2nd deadline. up next, the pasta is flying in manhattan. does historic little italy stand a chance against the sleek 21st century newcomer?

it's a classic tale of big business versus mom and pap. we're talking about new york's historic little italy. where traditional restaurants are trying to in compete with a new, italian powerhouse. richard roth explains. >> now, that's good. >> reporter: good seems an understatement for public reaction to eataly, the upscale extravaganza in manhattan. the new york branch of a global rollout, eataly rolled out with hype. >> eataly will become a destination for food aficionados from far and wide. >> reporter: those that cooked up eataly, says it's doubled projections. >> everyone seems to love everything about eataly.

>> reporter: not everybody loves eataly. especially those in historic little italy. >> eataly is a great place. but it's more of a shopping mall. >> i respect the chefs of eataly. but eataly itself, there's restaurants in eataly. but it's not an italian experience. >> reporter: before the cheese heats up, eataly is not taking the bait. >> we're huge fans of little italy. i think little italy celebrates a part of new york that's ingrained and central. >> reporter: italian food lovers can't seem to stomach the other location. >> little italy has godden commercialized, right, over the years. >> reporter: have you ever heard of eataly? >> no. >> have you heard of eataly? >> no. >> if i want to sleep with the fishes, i'll go to little italy and go fish shopping. >> reporter: have you been to eataly? >> i know the joint. no interest. >> reporter: because? >> i'm italian. i want to eat real italian food. i don't need to eat the

pseudostuff. >> reporter: lou depalo's family has been in little italy since 1910. they concede that eataly has helped, not harmed their business. >> work in harmony with places like eataly. we have the same mission. and this is new york city. 21 million people. i could never service 21 million people. >> this is where the american dream and italy come together in harmony. >> i'd like to see mario come down and try our sauce. >> reporter: would he make it out alive? >> of course he would. >> welcome to italy. >> reporter: richard roth, cnn, new york. >> okay. let's go to a different kind of debate. a battle for survival. it's common knowledge that the tiger is an endangered species. in australia, could the same fate be awaiting tiger airlines. as the airline's planes remain grounded for a sixth day.

from cnn london, i'm charles hobson. >> and andrew stevens in hong kong. you're watching "world business today." >> back to our top story today. "the news of the world" hacking scandal. david cameron has promised a full investigation that the paper hacked people's private voicemail accounts. it's claimed that journalists listened to messages for a missing schoolgirl, that was later found murdered. as well as families of victims

of the 2005 london bombings and the families of soldiers killed in iraq and afghanistan. that's the latest group of people it's been revealed may have been affected by this voicemail hacking. the owner of the tabloid paper, rupert murdoch, called the allegations deplorable. >> it isn't new for "news of the world." let's pick up the story in 2005. the royal family, people suspected were listening to the voicemail messages of prince william and others. the reason, "the news of the world" had information that could only gleaned from telephones, not by any other means. in 2006, the metropolitan police arrested two men. one of them this man, clyde goodman. also, a private investigator.

both were then sent to prison. go forward to 2007 now. "the news of the world" editor, andy colson resigned. when cameron was elected prime minister, colson became a government staff member. the scandal had just started to die down. in 2009, it blew up again. "the guardian" newspaper said that reporters knew what they were up to. high-profile victims include these two. sienna miller and hugh grant. what brought it home to the public, was something charles was mentioning there. the latest allegations. the paper hacked into the voicemail accounts of the victims of july 7th, 2005, also in the murdered schoolgirl that disappeared in 2002.

that seemed to really spark, really hit a raw nerve, hacking into that schoolgirl who was murdered. >> absolutely. i think it was a tragic case. a lot of us remember it very, very well. you mentioned, andrew, that hugh grant was a celebrity victim of phone hacking. he's since become a high-profile critic of the practice. he does love cricket, as well. and he even wears a wire to secretly tape a conversation with a -- did wear a wire to secretly record a conversation with a "news of the world" journalist, who admitted to hacking phones. he spoke with richard quest about his revoltion of some of the media. >> we need to look at the culture. people don't have to buy the papers. and advertisers have to look

themselves hard in the mirror and said, do we want to be advertising in papers like "the news of the world." they're hopefully liking to kick this into the long grass. maybe a new news story will come up. that's why it's the job of unlikely people like me to keep the pressure on all the time. because it's not going to come from the government or from the opposition. they like to have a cozy relationship with the murdoch press, as well. not much is going to come from the police. it's left to, a few unlikely souls like myself. i think this moment, when the british public, and now the international public is seeing how repulsive these people are is the moment that i'm homing that more people come out of their trench and say, this has got to stop. >> hugh grant, echoing a growing anger in the u.k. about the phone hacking story. the mushrooming hacking scandal cost "the news of the world" some of its top advertisers.

the ceo of the largest advertising conglomerates says that consumers are learning about and responding to scandals much more quickly. >> i think it's power to the people, as certainly consumer reaction is now extremely fast. faster than any of us could countenance a few years ago. the fundamental point, a revolution in syria or egypt, is not caused by -- it's wrong to call these things the facebook revolutions. they've been accelerated by them. and things move truly at light speed now. we're seeing that in the context of this current controversy over "the news of the world." >> now, ford, virgin, vauxhall, and others have pulled their ads

from "news of the world." and many more companies are considering that position. if you're away from your television, you can stay up to date by going online. go to cnn.com/international. you'll get all of the latest updates on that story. as well as the top stories from around the world. just get you back up to date with the stock markets now. they've been opening -- open, now, for just under 100 minutes. we were looking at decent gains. we're going to see where we are at the moment. yeah. the ftse up 0.25%. and the zurich smi, hesitantly to the good half an hour ago, is actually up by around about 50%. not an enormous amount of interest rates and what we're going to get from wall street are going to be crucial in a session like this.

>> absolutely, charles. we have a big jobs number in a little more than 24 hours coming out of the u.s., which is always going to be a big marker for markets. here in asia today, more of a mixed session, really, for the markets. banking stocks in focus of china and hong kong, after the chinese interest rised 0.25% on wednesday. analysts say that was the final interest rate rise of inflation in china. in japan, the nikkei ending a seven-day rally. it was down to 0.1%. that was the rally we've seen on the nikkei for two years. in australia, a strong jobs report did little to boost the asx, though. it fell flat, despite the job numbers. to remind you what happened in the united states on wednesday. investors got into the buying mood. allison has a wrap of the action on wall street.

>> reporter: stocks on wall street managed to enter the upside on wednesday. investors were on-edge. worries are that pulling it down too much could have a crash-landing and have a ripple effect for the recovery. that didn't keep wall street from getting in a buying mood by the end of the day. the dow ended at 12,626. the nasdaq and the s&p 500 gained ground. financial shares bucked the trend and ended lower across the board, after moody's expressed concern about european banks. a rating on the service sector showed a slowdown of expansion in june. wall street watches the report more closely than it once did, since the service sector accounts for 80% of all jobs in the u.s. more data due out thursday. investors will get the latest read on weekly jobless claims.

economists expect the sector to have added 60,000 positions in june. that's a wrap of the day on wall street. i'm allison kosik in new york. still ahead, bogus bank notes in hong kong. and the harry potter series may be drawing to a close. but the spell is far from broken.

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and arrested another suspect. authorities believe the counterfeiters have been active for the past six months. most of the currency seriesed around hong kong during that period, have had identical serial numbers. let's go down under, where tiger airways says it's committed to flying australia's skies for the long-term. but the company's aviation authority wants to keep the airline grounded until the 31st of july because of ongoing safety concerns. our business analyst looks at the impact of the tiger brand and on investor confidence. they don't like these people, do they? >> not right now, charles. investors are continuing to sell tiger stock on the singapore exchange. today, its share price fell about 1%. but since july 1st, that's where the true story is. the airline shares have fallen nearly 14%.

this performance is understandable. here's a quick recap. on national proep into one safety scare found tiger pilots were flying too low because of the and citigroup says that tiger will lose $1.5 million each week it stays grounded. if it doesn't get its planes in before the end of the month, that's $6 million right there. one aviation analyst says the airline didn't have too far to fall. >> the tiger brand was seen as unpopular. there had been a lot of delays and cancellations. it is a small airline with not a lot of aircraft. you get that sort of thing. and it adopted an approach if you don't like it, tough. the prices are low.

>> any further suspension on tiger flights would likely be lifted before the end of july. charles? >> we tied into the question of brand image. do you think the customers will want to come back, to tick up what he was saying there. will it be like ryan air? the prices are low and the routes are convenient. >> you think they would think twice about coming back. but that seems to apply to major airline carriers where you pay a premium. when it comes to low-cost carriers, saving cash seems to trump concerns over safety. listen to this. >> people do quickly discount safety issues. particularly when there wasn't an accident in this case, that anybody could visibly latch on to. and i think once the carriers in the market, that memory will be

lost fairly quickly because there will be some very cheap prices coming back, too. >> and he also told me if tiger were to disappear from australia skies, its competitors like qantas and virgin australia could jack up ticket prices by as much as 15%. and we've seen investors move their money into those companies today. qantas airways, since july 1st, has been up about 8%. meanwhile, shares in virgin blue holdings are up about 23% since july 1st. charles? >> okay. just to be absolutely clear, you're not saying that all low-cost carriers that save you a bit of cash rather than pay attention to safety. i'm sure that's not what you were saying.

>> okay, great. thanks, indeed. fans have turned the final page on the book series. and the world will soon see the last of eight, epic movies. the last one. the magic and the money making power of harry potter seems set to live on.

welcome back to "world business today."

>> we're going to look at the weather now. wet and windy conditions. more of them for parts of europe, could put a damper on the tour de france. they won't be getting too hot with the kind of weather over the weekend, or all over this week in the u.k., is anything to judge by. jennifer delgado is at the international weather center. hello, jen. would you be out in a bike in this? >> no. but i know you have a fancy compactible bikes out there. it's not going to be a great day in the u.k. the temperatures are going to cooperate. if you're looking at the radar right now, you can see for yourself, showers right there. the area of low pressure will be consistent through friday. and that could spell problem areas for western france and the u.k. you can see the light, scattered showers out there. we're talking -- we're talking stage six. we're expecting a few more

showers to pop up. the winds will be 25 to 30 miles per hour. that's not what the cyclists want to experience. we're expecting temps 17 to 20 degrees. the distance traveled so far more than 226 kilometers. the temperatures really aren't going to be so bad, as i said towards the northwest. it's going to be a little cooler towards the east. going to step out of the way for you, charles. guess what? i think my battery died on my clicker. and that's about it for the graphics for right now. i can tell you towards eastern europe, we're talking about temperatures in the mid to upper 20s and a few 30s down towards the south. don't you love live tv? >> i want to confirm for you, jen, i'm not planning on riding my folding bike in the tour de france. i don't think i would get on very well. >> you wouldn't get on very

well. >> jennifer delgado, with or without your clicker, thank you very much. >> you're right. take care. >> what jen needed was a wand. that could solve all her problems. speaking of wands, it's the harry potter film. it comes out worldwide this day. even though the movies are ending, the harry potter brand is expected to remain lucrative through the magic of marketing. >> reporter: the tag line for this, the final of the eight harry potter films, it all ends here. that may be the case after seven novels. but harry will live on in the form of a new website coming soon. pottermore.com. >> back in 1998, i knew i was generating a lot more material

than would ever appear in the books. it was ridiculous at the time. who would ever want to know the significance of all these different wand woods. this was all in my head. >> reporter: now, j.k. rowling has teamed up with sony, to create a home for the background potter material, games and fans. there will be room for users to have their own potter web pages. everything will be free. rowling says it's her way of giving back to fans. >> you don't have to pay to get the extra material. you don't have to pay a single thing to go on to pottermore and have the experience you've just seen. that was important to me. >> reporter: the site will be the only place to buy potter e-books. rowling has kept the digital rights to her material. these ebooks will not be tied to

a certain type of reader. >> there's a big demand for them. what's incredible is the digital experience that's been created, allows you to accompany the reading in an interactive and innovative way. >> reporter: there is the official potter theme park in orlando, florida. and from spring next year, at the harry potter experience tour, at least in studios in london where potter was shot. it's being built by cnn's sister company, warner brothers. and there are all of the unofficial tours in london. potter mania will not disappear amongst the deathly hallows. jim bolden, cnn, london. >> indeed, the magic lives on. and on. that's this edition of "world business today." sadly, we're going to have to say farewell for now. thanks for joining us.

i'm andrew stevens in hong kong. >> i'm charles hudson in london. good-bye for now.